Taiwan's First Taiwan Strait Crisis Zombie Film Moves Forward as "The Minjiang Ship Incident" Gets Feature Development

"The Minjiang Ship Incident," a zombie-themed short film that sparked widespread discussion when it screened at this year's Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival, is set to be developed into a feature film. With its innovative premise weaving together intensely claustrophobic military thrills, geopolitics and an unknown virus, the film earned acclaim from a large number of fans during the festival and has been hailed as one of the most ambitious and original Taiwanese genre films in recent years.

Director Yu Chih-chieh cleverly draws on Taiwan's unique military history and the isolated terrain of its outlying islands, transforming political tension into visceral, extreme dread. The feature version of "The Minjiang Ship Incident" will not only elevate its scale and sensory thrills across the board, but will also dig deeper into the conflicts and struggles of human nature in extreme circumstances, with hopes of launching a brand-new "T-Zombie" (Taiwanese Zombie) wave to call its own.

Director Yu Chih-chieh said: "Taiwan has a very particular history, geographic position and sense of contemporary anxiety—creative soil that is difficult to replicate anywhere else in the world. With 'The Minjiang Ship Incident,' we hope to use the zombie genre to transform the sense of crisis we know so well into a story with international resonance. I'm honored to be working hand in hand with GaragePlay, and I look forward to building a T-Zombie universe that belongs to Taiwan."

"The Minjiang Ship Incident" is set against the backdrop of a tense Taiwan Strait crisis, telling the story of a mysterious fishing Ship that accidentally runs aground on a frontline military island. Duty officer Chang Yi-tien commands his soldiers to deploy in preparation to face the enemy—but unbeknownst to him, an unknown virus inside the Ship's hold will plunge the garrison, and the entire island, into catastrophe. When a Taiwan Strait crisis meets a zombie outbreak, a frontline military island becomes a fatal stranding ground.

Source: udn Stars — https://stars.udn.com/star/amp/story/10090/9558156